“No! That’s too late!”
Sanna’s glance darkened. “They must be summoned from the three corners of our land, from sea and sky and earth. Such a task is not easy.”
“Please, Great Woman,” I begged, all my newfound hope slipping away. “I must have help before then. Please.”
She held up a fingerless palm to silence me and tilted her head as if listening to a far-off call. Her sudden, whistling cry split the night. Loki and I clapped our hands to our ears.
“You need not be alone,” she said, her voice soft once again. “There are those who would join you now.”
Far out in the lead, three long yellow tusks waved above the water. My pack.
“Go,” Sanna urged, “I will see you at the sky’s next darkening.” She turned without another word and stepped off the ice, her body disappearing soundlessly into the black.
“And you, Loki,” I said, turning to the god. “You will not fail me?”
He slanted a grin at me, the expression sitting uneasily on my father’s features, and transformed into a raven with a snap of light. I took that for agreement.
The bird rose skyward on sharp black wings, melting into the stars.
I was no god, to shift so effortlessly from shape to shape. In this one night, I had already gone from Inuk to lemming to raven and back. Ataata had warned against shifting too frequently lest I grow too weary to regain my human form. But as the narwhals approached, I had no choice. At the sky’s first lightening, the Norse would kill Brandr. And my mortal form would die on the cross alongside him. I took a deep breath and willed myself a wolf.
Nothing happened.
Great Sanna, I prayed silently. Help me now.
A scream, part raven’s caw, part wolf’s howl, part woman’s cry, tore from my throat as my body split apart. First one long wolf leg, then another, thrust through my skin.
The narwhals breached once, tall plumes of spray spouting behind their long horns, then sprang from the water to land on wide-splayed wolf paws beside me. I struggled upright, long claws gripping the ice. We stood together for a moment, four wolves, panting and shaking our new skins.
Then White Paw, Floppy Eared, and Sweet One padded over to me, their tails lowered submissively, ears back. They sniffed my jaws, my belly, under my tail. I’d never truly smelled my pack before, not with a wolf’s nose. White Paw exuded strength, confidence, health. Deep inside, I felt drawn to her. I imagined running across the tundra, following the banner of her gray tail. Floppy Eared smelled less dominant, but healthy and strong. I could scent injury in Sweet One; a patch of dried blood marked her tail, where Bjarni’s arrow had pinned her whale form to the ice, but she was eager to hunt.
Their tails wagged furiously; their mouths lolled open. Floppy Eared stretched out his front paws and crouched in an offer to play. White Paw pressed her flank against mine. We spoke the same language now, a tongue of gestures and motion, odors and sounds.
We are glad to see you, Mother, said White Paw. We have missed you.
It is good to be with you again, I replied, licking her jaw, somehow not surprised that I had always been Mother to my pack, not Father. How did you find me?
Great Singarti showed us the way.
Floppy Eared yipped in excitement. He made us whales so we could follow you on the water. Then wolves again so we can follow you on land.
Sweet One tucked her tail between her legs. Where is your mate?
My mate? Brandr. He is in danger. Captive among a strange pack. And my brother is there, too. We must help them both.
Floppy Eared cavorted around us. Yes! Let us go! I am tired of being a sea creature. Glad to be on four legs again! Let us run and play! Let us fight and bite!
White Paw panted her agreement. A howl rose in my gut, working its way up until I felt compelled to sit on my haunches, throw back my head, and let it fly.
The others joined in, eyes closed, howling in long, sonorous waves that danced from one pitch to the other, our voices overlapping like the strands of a woman’s careful braid.
My throat raw but my weakness forgotten, I led my pack across the ice toward the knarrs. As we ran, I told them of my plan. It will be just like bringing down a moose, I assured them. But we must hurry! They must not see us coming. If they do, they will shoot at us with their arrows before we can rescue anyone.
We slunk, bellies against the ice, toward the Greenlanders’ ship, approaching in the moonshadow. With my wolf nose, I could smell Ingharr, as rank as a fox and full of gloating joy. Kiasik’s scent floated from the Icelanders’ knarr, where Freydis had ordered him held. Hopeless, injured, sick.
I could smell Brandr, too. He was terrified. Sweet One whimpered softly.
The heralding stars were twin points of light hovering just above the glowing horizon. Tomorrow, perhaps, Malina would rise in truth.
For now, only a false dawn lit the sky. The Sun’s rays limned the clouds in blood.
First light.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Floppy Eared and White Paw dashed to the stern of the boat; Sweet One and I ran to the prow, our wide paws silent and sure on the ice. I crouched below the tall knarr, invisible to all but the dragon figurehead.
Beside me, the sharp scent of fear rose from Sweet One’s flanks. I almost yipped for joy when White Paw and Floppy Eared began to howl near the stern to attract the Norsemen’s attention.
From above us, footsteps and shouting on the deck. The ship’s shadow sharpened on the ice as the torchlight moved toward the commotion at the stern.
Freydis’s voice rang above the clamor: “Ingharr, get your sword. Bjarni, your bow! Someone kill those wolves!” I sent a silent prayer to Singarti to protect his children. We would have to work quickly.
I padded from the shadows, ears pricked forward. The curved ship’s rail loomed above me, higher than a tall man’s head, but I leapt over it in one smooth movement and landed silently aboard. With Sweet One close behind me, I prowled the empty foredeck. Only the faintest rays of sunlight lit our way—all the sailors, with their torches, had rushed to the stern at Freydis’s command.
Two tall wooden crosses stood like barren trees at the prow of the ship. My empty human body, thankfully still unconscious despite being moved, lay in a crumpled heap at the foot of one, my wrists still locked in iron chains.
From the other cross hung Brandr.
They’d removed his fur parka and wool shirt and tied him chest-first to the beam so they could more easily pull the lungs from his back. He faced the ship, not the sea, his neck twisted painfully against the top of the cross. Ropes bound each wrist to the beam, his arms stretched so tight the muscles of his chest seemed close to splitting. Another rope bound him cruelly across the waist, slicing into the bare flesh of his stomach.
The tattooed guard stood beside the cross, armed with a short iron knife. At his waist hung a dark iron key. A few thralls sat nearby, peering toward the ruckus at the stern. They were oblivious to our presence—the sheep were not. At the smell of wolf, the panicked animals bleated manically and tried to clamber from the hold, futilely scraping their hooves against the hull.
Sweet One and I bounded forward before the thralls noticed us. She bowled into the guard’s legs; I struck his shoulders with my front paws. He screamed in shock and surprise and fell to his knees. The thralls spun toward the sound.
I’m invisible, I remembered as Brandr’s eyes roved right past me and latched onto Sweet One instead. I’m a spirit wolf, not a wolf in flesh.
Yet spirit or no, I could kill.
I ripped the guard’s throat from his neck. Warm blood gushed into my mouth. My long wolf tongue wanted to lap at the rich red feast. My Inuk mind wanted to scream. This did not taste like the fresh blood of the seal, the caribou, the whale. This was man’s blood, and I should not be drinking it.
I shook my head, specks of red flying from my snout, and let the man’s corpse rest. With my jaws, I ripped the iron key from his belt. The cold metal stuck to my t
ongue. As I made my way to my hunched human form, Sweet One rushed to keep the now-terrified thralls out of my way.
I turned wolf eyes on Brandr. He stared at Sweet One in turn. Bewildered, hopeful, scared. I inhaled his familiar scent one last time, then forced the air from my lungs, dispelling the wolf soul.
I expected to awaken in my human form. Instead I was nowhere. Nothing. Not wolf, not Inuk.
Trapped and rootless, my exhausted spirit hovered above the ship, watching while Sweet One corralled the herd of screaming thralls and White Paw and Floppy Eared dashed among the flying arrows of the Norsemen.
No! I screamed silently, my voice resounding only in the oblivion between worlds. Not now! I’d made it this far. I needed only one more transformation…
“Omat!” Brandr shouted. “Come back to me! You promised.”
His plea struck me like a harpoon, lodging beneath my ribs, and his words dragged me toward myself as surely as a line reeled in around a hunter’s hands.
Gasping for breath, I awoke. My eyes fluttered open. My surroundings spun for a moment, then resolved into a flat, indistinct world perceived through a human’s inferior senses.
“Omat!” Brandr’s cry sharpened my mind.
I grabbed the iron key lying before me on the deck and managed to unlock my chains. Clutching at the wooden cross for support, I struggled to my feet.
With the dead guard’s iron knife, I sliced through Brandr’s ropes. Then he was loose, his body falling off the cross and into my arms.
Sweet One feinted toward the sheep and thralls one more time, driving them like a caribou herd into a tight mass that clogged the entire width of the ship. None of the armed men in the stern would reach us.
Hope surged through me. I called my wolfdog to my side as Brandr and I stumbled toward the ship’s rail. Sweet One spun and dashed ahead, leading the way.
But I should’ve known it would take more than a crowd of panicked thralls to stop Ingharr Ketilsson. He pushed through some, trampled others, and managed to reach the rail before my wolfdog. He stood before her, his own teeth bared in a simulacrum of her snarl. His face swelled with Thor’s berserker madness.
He raised his nicked iron sword above Sweet One. Without thinking, I howled a warning and hurled my stolen knife. Ingharr ducked just in time; my blade sliced through the flesh of his ear, a hairbreadth from his skull.
That was all the opening Brandr needed.
My friend drove his shoulder into Ingharr’s knees—the two men crashed to the deck in a tangle of limbs.
Ingharr’s sword flew from his grasp, nearly shearing Sweet One’s nose. It struck point-first into the deck, vibrating just within my reach. Still dizzy from my recent return to humanity, I wrenched it from the wood. Heaving the massive weapon with two hands, I staggered forward. I dared not swing the sword into Ingharr’s neck, not with Brandr’s body twined with his. The yellow-haired man stuck out a leg to brace himself against the deck—I brought the sword crashing into his thigh. He bellowed, foam flying from his lips.
Brandr wriggled free, but nothing could stop Ingharr’s berserker rage. He grabbed Brandr’s ankle to stop his escape and slammed a fist into his bad leg. My friend grunted in pain, sweat popping on his brow despite the cold.
I heaved the sword again, ready to bring it down on Ingharr’s flushed neck.
A high-pitched scream tore through the night, freezing me in place. A slight figure flew through the crowd of sheep and thralls, a spear held in both hands.
Snorri.
For an instant, my eyes met the boy’s, but he didn’t recognize me. I was only an obstacle on the way to Brandr.
I didn’t think, didn’t pause, simply hurled the sword as I would a harpoon. The blade’s weight dragged it from the air. It clattered beside Snorri’s feet and skidded across the deck and into the open hold. The boy didn’t even slow.
I threw myself in front of him, twisting sideways to avoid his spear point, and grabbed the weapon’s shaft. Snorri’s momentum slammed us both against the side of the ship.
“Omat!” roared Brandr, still grappling with Ingharr. “Be careful!”
I tried to twist the spear from Snorri’s grasp, but he wrenched it from my hands and struck me across the face with the shaft. I fell back for a moment, and he turned on his father’s killer, growling with wordless rage.
“No!” I flung myself at Snorri’s back, calling up all I’d learned in the winter wrestling matches. This time I had the upper hand. Snorri’s strength was no match for my own. I pinned his arms to his sides—he bucked and twisted in my grasp, trying in vain to throw me off. I slid my hands to the shaft, holding Snorri between my arms as Ataata had once held me when he taught me to hunt. Pitting my strength against his, I dragged the spear past his chest, up to his throat, and pulled.
Snorri kicked backward, his heels digging through the soft hide of my boots, but I would not release him. My cheek pressed against his sweating neck as I held him in this awkward lovers’ embrace, feeling the life drain from his body as I choked the air from his throat with the spear.
“I don’t want to kill you, Snorri,” I spoke in his ear. “I know what it is to hate someone who’s taken away those you love. But killing me or Brandr won’t bring back your father. And killing you won’t bring back mine.” I tightened the shaft against his neck. “Your god teaches you that, doesn’t he?” I remembered the Christ from my dreams, hanging limp from his bloody cross, his eyes soft. “He did not fight what he could not change, and when he met his end, he dreamed of love—not hate.”
I felt some of the fight leave Snorri’s body. Tears leaked from his eyes. I relaxed the pressure again, allowing him a ragged gasp.
I went on, more gently. “Christ wants there to be peace between us. You saved me from Ingharr, now let me save you from yourself. I will let you go. But you have to leave here, do you understand?” My final words were a growl against his cheek. “You can’t go after Brandr. If you do”—I gave the spear a final warning yank against his bobbing throat—“your life is forfeit.”
“I won’t,” he choked, sounding once more like the skinny boy he was. “I—I don’t want to die.”
“Nor do I, Snorri.” I lifted the spear clear of his neck and pushed him roughly away. “Now go.”
The boy stumbled toward the rail and fell to his knees. He pressed his palms together and raised his face toward the sky. I left him there, praying to his strange god, and turned back to the battle behind me.
Brandr sat astride Ingharr, his hands circling the other man’s throat. The muscles of his bare chest and arms swelled, and I wondered if my friend had finally allowed the berserker rage to take control again. But no, his gaze was his own. Ingharr’s own acceptance of Thor’s gift was all too apparent; he still hadn’t given up, bucking beneath Brandr like a boat in a storm.
Around us, chaos reigned. Freydis’s voice rose above the clamor, desperately ordering her men to bring down the three wolfdogs that now prowled the deck. Blood slicked the boards. My pack had been busy. But even they couldn’t hold off a whole boat of Vikings forever.
First save Brandr. Then Kiasik. Then we flee, I decided, hurrying toward the struggling men with Snorri’s spear at the ready.
Brandr saw me coming. “No,” he grunted, his knuckles white around Ingharr’s neck. “I want to kill this one myself.”
With both hands, I rammed the spear through Ingharr’s stomach. “No time for vengeance.” I yanked the shaft clear of Ingharr’s intestines and whistled shrilly to my wolfdogs. “We have to find Kiasik.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
The drop from ship to sea was longer in my Norse skirts than it had been in my wolf guise, but I landed safely enough. With Brandr beside me, I sprinted toward the Icelanders’ knarr, hoping Loki had fulfilled his side of the bargain. My wolfdogs soon outpaced us, bounding ahead across the frozen, moonlit sea.
Freydis’s screams of rage chased us across the ice.
Around us, arrows clattered like hail. Bjarni
wasn’t the only Norseman with a bow—just the one with the best aim. The wolfdogs’ bodies twisted lithely as they dodged the shafts. As a human, even with my magic restored, my senses were not so keen. I trusted my luck—and ran.
The Icelanders’ ship rose before us. Only Olfun and one-armed Magnor stood on the deck, and neither had a bow. Still, they weren’t about to lower a rope to help us aboard, and I no longer had a wolf’s ability to leap to the deck.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to.
“This way!” a quavering voice called from the shadows beneath the ship’s hull.
“Muirenn!” Brandr cried. There, nearly hidden behind the carven figurehead, the old woman stood on the ice with a large, awkward bundle on her back. Beside her waited Kiasik, standing taller than he had since I first found him among the Norse.
“Skraeling!” shouted Olfun as we rushed beneath the hull and out of his sight. “Traitor!”
“Where are you going?” screamed Magnor. “Come here and fight!”
“Where’s her brother?” I heard Olfun ask as I embraced Kiasik.
“I tied him up on the foredeck.”
“Well, he’s not here now! No, wait—there they are!”
“Bjarni!” Magnor called over the ice toward the bowman on the other knarr. “Do you see them?”
An arrow thrummed toward us, sinking deep into the sea ice near Kiasik’s feet. He took a quick step backward; I grabbed him before he could slip on the ice. “Watch out!”
“I’m fine,” he said. “You don’t need to worry about me anymore.”
I looked at him more closely. His breath came evenly; his eyes gleamed. “How did—”
“The old woman,” he said, jerking his chin toward Muirenn. “She must be an angakkuq, because she laid her hands on my chest and the pain stopped.”
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